This is a first round match in the Austin Region, Portland Subregion. It is a standard one on one match. It will be held at Moda Center in Portland, Oregon.

#10. Kevin Nash

Vs.

#23. Shinsuke Nakamura

Polls will be open for three days following a one day period for discussion. Voting will be based on who you feel is the greater of the two competitors. Post your reasons for why your pick should win below. Remember that this is non-spam and the most votes in the poll win. Any ties will be broken by the amount of posts of support for each candidate, with one vote per poster.

Also remember that this is a non-spam forum. If you post a response without giving a reason for your selection, it will be penalized for spam and deleted.

When Nakamura debuted, I thought his in ring work was boring and I still don't really get it. However, I still feel invested in him and though it is a bit preaching to the choir, the NXT audience have embraced him in a manner that foreign wrestlers rarely have been in the USA. Nash is a big old unit, and I think that he edges this by virtue of the fact he was one of the biggest stars to make their names in the 90s, whereas it seems like Nakamura is still in the ascendancy. I think I could be swayed, but for now, it's Nash.

I have to say Nash wins it here on account of his impact in American wrestling. Nash was one of the biggest stars of the 90s in WWF and WCW, though especially WCW given that he was one of the Founding Fathers of the nWo.

I like Nakamura, his antics are different and he's often pretty fun though I do think his greatness in the ring is a bit overrated. I know he's stiff, but stiff and being great don't automatically go together. Don't get me wrong, he's fun to watch, but he's no Bryan, HBK, Benoit, Zayn, Jericho, Rollins or a number of others in my eyes.

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On his own, Shinsuke Nakamura was a bigger deal in Japan than Nash ever was in the United States. I'm not going to use the "Nash only got his spot because of the Cliq" argument because I don't necessarily buy it, but he did get his world title in the WWF basically because he was a big guy with a good look. His win really came out of nowhere and while they tried to make it seem like a big deal, the fans never really bought into Nash. Nakamura on the other hand was so over in Japan that he was given the IWGP Heavyweight title a year and a half after his debut and became the youngest IWGP champ in history. He's beaten guys like AJ Styles, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Kurt Angle in clean style, classic matches. He's had a war with Brock Lesnar. Nakamura is one of the most popular wrestlers in Japanese HISTORY. He really was a phenom. To top it all off, Nakamura comes to the WWE and becomes NXT's biggest star to date.

Sure Nash impacted the business through the NWO, but the guy has barely done anything of note without somebody else to lean on. Yeah he was a multiple time WCW World champion but he booked most of the reigns himself and soon after he became champ, WCW went down the shitter. If we're viewing these guys based on what they've done by themselves, Nakamura takes the cake every day.

Nash had like, 5 really good years in the business. Nakamura has been phenomenal for 15. Don't let the fact that Nak wrestled in Japan and Nash wrestled in America be the deciding factor here. Vote Nakamura.

Nash's jumping ship with Hall definitely played a big part in WCW's rise and subsequent boom period which made them the closest company in the world to WWE by a wide margin; but by comparison Nakamura's transition to his current look and personality, along with the rise of Tanahashi, were what revived New Japan from a down period and sparked their latest boom period and rise which has made them the closest company in the world to WWE by a wide margin.

Nash had a lot of championship success(mostly due to backstage pull), but never had a strong and profitable reign as champion. Nakamura on the other hand also has had a lot of title success- three times holding the IWGP heavyweight championship, while also becoming the face of New Japan's IC title, winning it five times, having the longest ever reign, and single handedly raising the profile of that championship to near equal footing with the IWGP belt where it now sits just behind that belt as the biggest title prize in the pro wrestling world not competed for under the WWE's umbrella.

Also while Nash performed well(in a win/loss sense never in a quality matches sense) with absolutely everything possibly imaginable stacked in his favor; Nak has been able to perform thousands of miles beyond expectations, even after traveling thousands of miles to continue his career in a different hemisphere.

Nak has already entered the WWE world, owned NXT, went months undefeated, won the brand's world title twice, defeated many of the top guys that brand has produced, and that's just the start as he hasn't even gotten a chance for his main roster push yet. He is already the most successful Japanese star that the company has ever pushed.

Nash has a lot to hang his hat on, but he should. With his size and the behind the scenes pull he built up, he would've had to have been the worst wrestler ever to have not achieved at least as much as he did. Nakamura on the other hand achieved an arguable amount of success on a relative scale, and did it all on the back of his own magnetism, personality, charisma, originality, and enigmatic appeal. I would have voted Nakamura here based on his career in Japan, even without accounting for the success and groundbreaking, game changing, door busting in for perception changing and potential future of the business altering effect that his jump to WWE has yieded. Throw that effect in and the fact that Nakamura lost nothing from his star or his momentum and only upped his status by taking the McMahon money, and he locks this match-up up for me.

I voted Kevin Nash, and I'm aware of how good Nakamura has been in the past. Nash was a world champion in two separate promotions. Even though he wasn't a strong draw for live attendance figures, he did boost PPV numbers as Diesel. And that was still an important source of revenue for the WWE at the time. When the NWO exploded, Nash found himself at the epicenter and became a huge draw for the company for a number of years. Nakamura was a big star in NJPW, but he wasn't the ace. That was Tanahashi. Easily. Nakamura was basically the Orton to Tanahashi's Cena. Nash may not have been Hogan or Shawn Michaels, but there were still periods where the WWE and WCW were built around him.

Give Nakamura a few more years. If he can achieve even greater success in the WWE than he did in New Japan, and become a breakout star once he gets to the main roster, then I might vote for him. But for now I vote Nash.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Crocker

Bernkastel you have successfully trolled me for a long time.. just wanna tell you that you are a VERY good troll. You made me wanna punch you in the face and strangle you